The 2025 BioCriticism webinar proposes interdisciplinary approaches to “Biodiversity and Neglect in Art and Science”. Each 90-minute session consists of two twenty-minute talks followed by discussion. Please join us for the first session on
Neglected biodiversity in kitchens and fictions
on 28 March 2025 at 14-15:30 Central European Time
First speaker: Prof. Marko Rohlfs (Chemical Ecology, Bremen University), “Caring mothers: the symbiotic relationship between insects and microbes in nurturing their young – in your kitchen!”
Second speaker: Teun Joshua Brandt (Literature and Culture, University of Groningen), “Save the Unseen!? Microbial Tricksters in Science Fictions”
If you are interested in this webinar, you can receive the link by registering here (for free):
More information about the BioCriticism webinar is available here, and detailed abstracts and biographies below.
Prof. Marko Rohlfs (Chemical Ecology, Bremen University), “Caring mothers: the symbiotic relationship between insects and microbes in nurturing their young – in your kitchen!”
Insects often rely on microbes to care for their young and show a remarkable family life. Fruit flies use gut bacteria and yeast fungi to enrich their offspring’s nutrition, while earwigs employ microbes to protect their eggs from pathogens. This talk uncovers these surprising insect-microbe partnerships, many happening right in our kitchens. So, whenever you chase away or even kill a fly or an earwig, it might be a caring mother.
Marko Rohlfs wrote a diploma thesis in “Biology” on “Aggregation behaviour in Drosophila” in 2000 at the University of Kiel, Germany. He continued working on this topic during his PhD (2003) and added the “Chemical Ecology” of mould fungi as antagonists of fruit flies until his Habilitation in 2010. Then he moved to the University of Göttingen and continued working on arthropod-fungus interactions, which, besides Drosophila, involved the ecology of soil dwelling Collembola (springtails), and in particular, feeding-induced chemical responses in the fungi. Since 2021 he has been a full professor for chemical ecology at the University of Bremen. He still investigates insect-microbe interactions; his working group’s focus is on how habitat variation promotes or prevents the co-evolution of microbe management and insect social lives. Besides all this, he is a biodiversity enthusiast who collaborates with society to promote insects.
Teun Joshua Brandt (Literature and Culture, University of Groningen), “Save the Unseen!? Microbial Tricksters in Science Fictions”
Despite growing concerns about microbial biodiversity loss and its cascading consequences of coextinction, the ‘unseen majority’ remains understudied and underrepresented, creating a significant knowledge gap in public awareness. This talk turns to popular science fiction narratives that feature microbial worlds, exploring how they render the uncharismatic affectively resonant. In works such as Joan Slonczewski’s The Children Star, Frank Schätzing’s The Swarm, or Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Series, the standardized heroic quest of the truth-seeking scientist is met with microbial ‘trickster figures,’ playfully weirding the rigid ontologies by which we live and make sense of our worlds. This talk argues that trickster storytelling is an effective way to engage wider audiences without romanticizing or anthropomorphizing the microbial, turning the traditional tree of knowledge upside down.
Teun Joshua Brandt is a PhD researcher at the University of Groningen. His research focuses on the intersection of biology and literature, with a particular emphasis on narratives of health, bodies, and microbial worlds. He is currently involved in an interfaculty project on biological individuality and literary characters, merging insights from the philosophy of biology and literary theory. Brandt graduated summa cum laude with a master’s thesis on deep-sea microbial worlds in the Anthropocene. In addition to his research, he convenes the Environmental Humanities Network at the University of Groningen and teaches courses on pandemic narratives and the nonhuman other, among other things.
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BioCriticism is organised by Liliane Campos with the support of PRISMES EA4398 and the Institut Universitaire de France. For information and links, please contact liliane.campos@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr or check the BioCriticism website.
